20 November 2016

The loco drunk said he was sick, his face ash gray, his countenance that of a dying man. Two former nurses were about, one, saying his pulse was thready and breathing labored. He was refusing help, just wanted a case of water and to go back to his camp, a burned-out trailer up the mountainside.

We debated and agonized on what to do. Since he was refusing help, should we ask for it anyway? They looked up to me, well, because I am six and a half feet tall, how could they not? In the end, I called senpai for advice and he said unto me to call EMS with the disclaimer the loco drunk could refuse treatment. When I told said loco drunk that, he spoke of someone helping him.

"That is exactly what we are doing, Sir," I said as I went to call EMS, my voice reptilian, detached, cold as the airless void between the stars. Hou lain, hei tsin-thick face, black heart-ask Sun Tzu.

They could not even find a blood pressure, and, thus, took him away. My documentation took me back to days as a triage coordinator in the field of transplant. The feeling-more than a feeling-I have is we will be burying someone from our community very soon. I hope I am incorrect.

15 November 2016

Well, it's been a week. The has been anger and cheers, smiling and tears. The Onion, as it is so hip to say, killed it with their coverage of events. The fact satire makes for more honest coverage speaks volumes to the absurdity before us. I wonder what the reportage would've been like had it gone the other way.

Victory is an interesting point of view. By the popular, the will of the people, one person won. The electorate says otherwise, and that's the cat running the show. A reason I get cynical about politics past a loco level, but that's another rave rant for another time. And the protests; if you tell me the winning side wouldn't have cried foul and protested had things not gone their way, I'll call you a filthy fucking liar to your face.

Boy-howdy, it would've been nice to see a woman in charge. After all, we are oh so advanced and enlightened as to have had a black man-half, technically-run things, and it was not that long ago they could only aspire to be the help. Not long before that, they were bought and sold as beasts of burden. So, why couldn't or shouldn't we? We are, after all, supposed to be the best.

In the past few days I have heard some compelling and intelligent arguments that, other than the genitals, nothing would have really changed. Sure, a girl would've been on top of the sand pile, but otherwise, status quo. Just some rich older cat in a suit. Another career politician.

History was made a week ago. Someone who rocked not being a politician won. Now just how not-politician he stays remains to be seen.

I'm not happy about it. He's a bigot, a bully, and a bro, which are aspects of the human affliction I dislike. However, he got the prize, and all the petition signing and protesting isn't going to change that I don't think. My liberal friends and acquaintances got eight years of sitting pretty, and now, perhaps, it is time to suck it up and survive not being the popular kids for a bit.

That being stated, in two years come the midterms, and I hope to see more blue in the legislative branch. I know my conservative friends and acquaintances snarl at the idea, but, to my mind there is far too much red in the hallowed halls of power presently, and that is an imbalance. We need the equilibrium in order to properly function.

Of course, and this is probably political-imaginary-land, but it would also be nice to elect cats on both sides of the aisle that will work together. That whole cliche of being there for the people. Saying you want your leader to fail or block him/her/it/whatever at every turn, even if they might have a great idea because your ideology doesn't gel with theirs is a dick move.

Wait, maybe I should retract that dick move line. That kind of jackassery is an insult to moves made by dicks. Or people named Richard.

09 November 2016

There it is. My dimestore guess was off, but I am no prophet. One ideology rejoices, the other mourns. So it goes. Congratulations, I'm sorry. With one exception I've observed, it seems that eight years is the dinger for one ideology to be in power, then people want a taste of the strange, but, really, what is the difference between Repulracrat and Democrican? Aside from the spelling?

The sun rose today, and it will set. Strap in. Rejoice or mourn, but remember, four to eight years is really not that long of time.

24 August 2016

Sooo, at a meeting regarding county trail maintenance and interpretive signage, the executive assistant to the commissioners called me a jem. Me.

This is a true story as told by a preservationist of my acquaintance and admiration. I inclined my head respectively in thanks, the whole time thinking they've got me mixed up with some other tall lanky bastard who likes to play outside.

12 July 2016

We were speaking of roadtrips and fun places to go. Leadville came up, because we both think it's a funky little 'berg, because you gotta have the funk. I mentioned having picnics in the town's cemetery with a bottle of wine, which was lauded as a good idea. Although, when I mentioned people were just dying to get to the cemetery, I was greeted with a groan and an eyeroll, and I don't know why.

"Of course, the people across the street from the cemetery can't be buried there," I said.

"Really? Why?"

"Because they ain't dead yet," I replied.

"Goddamnit," She snorted, burying her face in her hands, "I have no words."

A sociopath, or, perhaps a sadistic man, would have found glee in her reaction. Of course I am neither. Aren't you thankful?

07 June 2016

Jibril looked the age he would be now. His hair was long than he kept it around the time he died, but shorter than when we first met. Being two years my senior, the sandy blond had faded to a dusty Grey. His savagely intelligent eyes were framed by lines that read like esoteric charts to forgotten lands. His suit was not as tattered as the one I remember him wearing in his last days.

We were at some evening gathering where Tich Nhat Hanh was supposed to speak, but he did have that stroke, and, instead was on side-show display. His spasmed movements spoke of severed and damaged brain wires. There was no serenity to be offered by this. Outside, the world was starting to burn down.

"As you can see, I'm still alive," Jibril said as we attempted to look away from the spectacle before us. "But they're coming for me tonight, and then it will be the End of Days."

"You know I don't believe in that shit," I said with a bit of a snort. In the years since my mother's and the bruja's respective deaths, my ability to take anything on anything other than analysis and inquiry had dropped drastically.

"The Universe doesn't care what you believe," Jibril said coldly. A mantra I've heard on both the science and religious sides of the aisle.

19 May 2016

I have mentioned having encounters from cats from all across the planet. This sort of thing happens when you live where others come to vacation. Every so often I have someone ask me for a space in which show devotion because it's prayer time. I do not prey unless it is in context of the food chain, but I accommodate, finding a them a quiet place and pointing which direction is east. They're always polite, and, sometimes, frightened to ask, which is sad, but not unexpected given the sociopolitcal climate of the day. A year back, it was a couple of skiing students with a Call to Prayer app on their phone. Fantastic. Today, it was a couple.

I had a class to set up, and left them to their devotional with a fellow proletariat making sure they were not disturbed. Upon my return, I was given notations of the exact longitude and latitude of Mecca for the Qibla direction and many thanks. They had wanted to thank me in person, but so it goes.

10 May 2016

I would say we're balls deep in mud, but the hummingbirds showed up a week ago, and that makes it spring. There are the subtle omens; the grass is becoming green and flowers are sprouting out of the beds. On some of the trees, you can see the hint of leaves and the river is running a little higher as the higher up snowpack begins to melt.

Slowly, we shed the Grey apathy of winter. Sometimes, there has been snow. Sometimes, it has stuck. It can snow up here any time of year. Mountains. Because of the higher angle of the sun, in strange and psychological ways, forty-five degrees with no wind seems so much nicer than a month or two ago. Back in January, forty-five with no wind would constitute a deep winter heatwave.

Perhaps it is the world waking up to its short warmer times, maybe it's been exploring new places, both on foot and otherwise, it could be that discussion we had, upon which we decided on a course of action, but perhaps not yet, but my restlessness has somewhat abated. There is still the urge for adventure, to go!, go!!, go!!!, but I as have a sense of serenity. Mountain zen, perhaps.

Come what may, the mountains have taught me things. An expansion of horizons I could not find in great libraries, cities, fields, or forests. For that I am grateful. There are other adventures and other eventualities, though not yet. Here and now, I take in the here and now. Here and now, I am serene.

26 March 2016

She was maybe ten or eleven with striking red hair. She told me about learning about animals at a camp for dyslexics. Her voice was hushed, and a little hurried. It was obvious she felt a little awkward. At ten or eleven, who didn't? Even and especially when you have a learning disability that has fucked with some of the wires in your skull? I folded myself all but in half to lean down to her, and said with a slight smile;

20 March 2016

The second clear day after a multi-day snow. It is not without irony Sabina broke one of her toes, precluding a snowshoe. So, we intend to roadtrip. At least we'll be getting out.

I have been restless as of late. Wanting to wander far afield. Perhaps it has been the recent travel. Maybe it is simply the time of year, as temperatures warm and the world begins its thaw. I hunger for shorts and sandals and looking out at the night sky without wanting to be in goose down.

Many times, I have mentioned that concept of Kashmir; a mystical concept introduced by pothead during a Led Zeppelin song of the same name. At seventeen, I was obviously very impressionable, because I've carried around that idea ever since. One of the aspects of it was one's place in the world was a much a state of mind as a location of dirt and rock. The mental state aspect has figured greatly into the equations of the mathematics of my thoughts.

Back when Sabina and I were headed to the hills, I made some remark about being grateful for her company in the endeavor. She she could not imagine the mountains without me, because there was no Kashmir without me. Thinking about it, in the last near-decade, I have traveled more than I had since I was eighteen, when I had gone to North Carolina to find those adolescent friends in the small southern town with fuck all to do had moved on without me.

But that's another story...

It works both ways, there is no Kashmir with out Sabina. In the aspect of the mental state, she is my Kashmir, and isn't that about as romantic as piss? Love her as I do, in the typing of that, I think I may have vomited a little...in my mouth.

I find myself desirous of going to the island again. Blame it on the whales, because, you know, I'm the first mainlander to say that. I also think of the naturalistic aspects and the idea of the dynamic that the island is still being made has my attention.

Yet, I find my restlessness is expanding beyond the idea returning to the island. The last few days I've meditated on the concept of becoming a peregrinator. I've met more than a few up here. Some who have permanent homes up here they return to either seasonally or every few years, or ones who disappear for a couple years, then come back for another couple before disappearing points beyond once more.

I mean, fuck it. Why could we? Why shouldn't we? It means adventure and something to do. Were I ever to get bored enough to die, the last thing I would want anyone to try and say about me is I wanted to spend more time at the office. That is slow death.

Perhaps it's just the time of year. The world slowly thaws and transitions and I am craving change. Maybe it's that I've gone a bit further than one of our multi-mile walkabouts or day-long roadtrips of burning fuel, and I want to see what's on the other side of the horizon. It could be it doesn't really matter at all, but that I have had this feeling as of late.

Actually, it's more than a feeling...

Something will happen, I feel that all the way to my marrow. Whatever that something is, I'm fairly confident it'll be entertaining. And, no matter what, as long as I have that one particular traveling companion, it would seem Kashmir will follow me wherever I go.